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"This is a journey of my life since I was all of 12 yrs when I started my hand in cooking to now with displays of my learning and creations of recipes from around the world. My inspiration and role model has always been my Mum who has always created dishes from around the world and excellently well. I do not believe I would ever match to her culinary skills. I remember the times she could cook and bake almost 4-5 dishes in one go without ever letting one go under cooked or burnt! I was born and raised in Dubai, UAE and recently moved to India for family reasons. Kitchenette just means that over the decades, my kitchen has changed from that of my mum's to my uncle and aunt's, to my home in UAE and now in India. Pala't'te, describes both global cuisines ('Palatte'-diverse flavours) and pleasing diverse 'Palates'."

Saturday, 2 June 2012

Methi Roti (Wholewheat Indian flatbread with Fenugreek Leaves)

Fenugreek leaves as I have mentioned in my earlier posts has many a medicinal value. Fenugreek was introduced to us by our nutritionist as to avoid Type1 and Type 2 diabetes and thus found its way into my kitchen. Methi or Fenugreek leaves based Chapatis(Unleavened Flatbread) or Rotis(Flatbread made of wholewheat) has been a part of our staple diet.

The dough:
Take the flour and salt in a large vessel to allow for the kneading process. Add a little lukewarm water and knead (keep adding water bit by bit as required) until a dough is formed. Take a wooden board or worktop, dust a tad of flour as required and place the dough over and knead through until a smooth dough is formed (to avoid stickiness).

Fenugreek leaves

Ensure that the leaves are not wet or pat dry before adding it to the dough or else the dough would get sticky. Ideally pat dry before the chopping of the leaves. With a fisted hand, pound the dough in the center and add half the leaves, continue kneading so as to evenly spread the leaves across the dough. Add the remaining leaves and repeat.

Once the dough is ready, leave it to stand for at least 15-30 minutes. This will ensure that the rotis or Chapati turns out soft when serving.

Rolling the dough:
Roll out the dough into small rounds depending on the size of the roti you would like to serve. On a wooden base, dust a little flour. Press the small dough ball flat using your hand. Now using a rolling pin, roll out the flattened dough on one side. Keep a tad bit of flour on one side of the worktop and dab the dough into the flour if required(normally if the dough is found to be slightly stick so as not to stick to the rolling pin or wooden base and cause tearing halfway through the rolling process).

Flip the flat dough on the other side and repeat till the Roti is evenly flat all around and reaches the shape you need. You can make it into the traditional round or a triangular shape as required.

Initially of course you may end up having different shapes of various countries on your board.I have yet to perfect the art of making perfectly round rotis/chapattis. It requires some amount of effort, time and patience. I remember one special aunt (Aunty Vinna), I stayed with for a while required perfectly round chapatis and I found it very cute that she achieved that by placing a clean vessel over the rolled out dough forming a perfect circle. I particularly enjoyed the chapatis she used to make for us :)

Keep your hot plate ready to store your rotis. Heat a skillet and lower to a medium flame, add your first rolled out dough and after 2-3 minutes, flip it to the other side. Check if it is evenly cooked. You can also add oil or ghee as desired. We use neither, so next I move my skillet(which has a guarded handle so as not to burn myself) away from the flame and place the Roti on the flame using my spatula and move the spatula away, you will find that the Roti puffs up. I toss the Roti back onto the skillet (still not on the flame), and repeat for the other side. The roti then goes into the hot plate.

Methi Roti

Serve your Rotis with Yoghurt/Curd or your specially prepared dish. Kids also enjoy this with jam or cheese and other spreads. In my case, it was Rajma Masala! Enjoy! Bon Appetit..

Haha Anu...it wasn't voluntarily heart-shaped. Probably was rolling from my heart this time;-)I really need to work at getting perfectly round shaped ones. Your uncle seems to have an excellent sense of humor. Mine normally turns out to look like different country's shapes as well.

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Inspiration...

"Mum has been the true chef...cooking and baking over 4-5 dishes in one go to perfection! Over the years I have learnt, been inspired and awed by the likes of Martin Yan with his famous line : "If Yan can cook so can you", Gordan Ramsay (I know! but he is amazing), Rachael Ray,MasterChef Australia's judges: Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris, Matt Preston, Matt Moran and several others. I never miss a chance to watch and learn or better yet smell, taste and learn.This has been since the start, I fail to follow recipes as well as I experiment and it turns out better in result through smell and taste!"